The National Participation Committee (CNP) was installed in Bogotá on August 3 with the presence of Commander Pablo Beltrán, Chief Negotiator of Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN), Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia, and 81 delegates from different sectors of civil society. The installation of the CNP marked the formal start of the six-month bilateral ceasefire between the two parties that had been agreed upon on June 9 in the last round of talks held in Cuba.
“Count on us to solve causes, not consequences of the armed conflict,” were the words of Pablo Beltrán, making it clear that armed violence is one small part of the violence afflicting Colombian society compared to the systematic violence of the state that starves, kills, and extinguishes the people.
María Consuelo Tapia, a member of the ELN negotiating team, gave very precise political definitions, calling for “deeds of peace” that would allow the most neglected sectors of the population to give voice to historical demands, to ancestral and very current exclusions, in the search for “a society in dialogue” to resolve its historical structural problems. In his speech, Gustavo Petro expressed the position he represents as part of the Colombian state. There are two central elements in his words that are repeated: the need to put an end to historical forms of violence in the exercise of politics, and that the results of this peace dialogue process should be the fruit of a great national-political agreement.
Pablo Beltrán pointed out the dangers for peace, highlighting that the government is still a part of the state, and there are sectors of the elites that do not accept the current dialogue process. He said it will be necessary to observe their behavior over time. At the same time, he emphasized the importance of the participation of society in the construction of proposals for social transformation for peace. These proposals, he says, should not remain declarations, but rather that their implementation should be guaranteed as a product of a great political agreement between different sectors at the national level.
Meanwhile, the fourth cycle of official talks between the government and the ELN successfully concluded on September 4 in Caracas, Venezuela. The two sides reached key agreements on the creation of humanitarian zones in areas most affected by violence, the elaboration of an analysis on the situation of political prisoners from the ELN, support to the CNP, and maintenance of the bilateral ceasefire which just completed one month.
In this context, La Tizza interviewed Antonio García, the First Commander of the ELN, to gain more insight into the dialogue process and what are considered to be the biggest obstacles to achieving lasting, true peace.
La Tizza: As we know, paramilitarism has always had a specific function within the type of state domination that has historically been established in Colombia. How are you preparing to assume the political and military risks of the peace process in terms of the presence of paramilitary groups that carry out actions for which they then blame the army or the ELN itself?
Antonio García: The threat of paramilitarism is not only in times of ceasefire, but permanent. It is known that paramilitarism is an essential component of the Colombian state’s counter-insurgency doctrine, which is why it survives governments. Paramilitarism is more than a structure, it is a modality for carrying out the covert operations of the state. It carries out everything that the state wants to do, but which would put its legitimacy at risk and bring it serious national and international legal difficulties.
We know that the paramilitaries have a license to use the drug trafficking business to autonomously finance their structures and operations. They carry out selective assassinations against social and community leaders, massacres to instill terror in the communities, and try to make them give up their struggles. They also act as a shock force for transnational corporations interested in displacing communities from territories where they want to exploit resources.
At present and during the course of the ceasefire, they are a functional apparatus for the military forces to carry out offensive operations in territories where the guerrillas are present and mobile. Their aim is to affect the communities and continue with their policy of dispossession, and restrict the guerrilla’s spaces of permanence and mobility. This would be favorable to the state from a strategic point of view.
They are functional to the state, thanks to them the state does not take responsibility and lets them act militarily against us. For these reasons, the ELN is free to act against them; the ceasefire does not apply to these groups and gangs.
LT: If we take into account that there are differences and contradictions between the different sectors of Petro’s government coalition, as well as disputes with other sectors – some very reactionary and conservative – of traditional Colombian politics, how does the ELN evaluate the resistance of sectors of the Colombian state to the dialogue process?
AG: We could simplify for the sake of a better understanding of the Colombian political phenomenon. There are currently 3 political coalitions in Parliament: extreme right, center-right and center-left, none of which can legislate as a defining force and require alliances with the other coalitions.
Each of these coalitions seeks to become in the short and medium term the force that can lead the next government. For this reason, they are moving carefully and with a certain flexibility that allows them to count on alliances. The government is seeking parliamentary majorities in the center-right bloc that includes the Liberal Party and the Santistas [close to former president Juan Manuel Santos], as well as the Greens. Those on the extreme right are grouped in the Democratic Center, Radical Change and the Conservatives. And they seek alliances with sectors of the center-right. The center-right coalition seeks alliances on both sides.
The government, at times, prioritizes alliances with traditional political sectors and leaves aside the social and popular camp. But when these alliances do not work, it turns to mobilization and popular support.
Some sectors of the Historic Pact interpret these criticisms of the government’s sort of reformist stance as if those who criticize from the popular camp or the left are Uribistas. If alliances are to be built from the left, the government sectors must be open to criticism, and for that it is necessary to listen to society, not only to those who speak good of the government.
LT: In the post-conflict scenario with the FARC-EP, we have seen the continuity of a policy of physical elimination of demobilized combatants and social leaders. What analysis could you offer of this post-conflict scenario up to the present day? What would be the ELN’s main demands for a hypothetical post-conflict period?
AG: We have always been critical of the concept of “post-conflict”: there can be no society without conflict, because conflict is the dynamic of a society. It is through conflict that states of domination, exploitation and submission are broken. It is through the correct handling of conflicts that other forms of constructive relations within societies can be achieved. It is not a question of erasing or ignoring conflicts, but of knowing how to deal with or manage them. This must always be done with the participation of society.
With the demobilization of the ex-FARC, the conflict remained intact…The state and the political regime have not changed at all, its essence remains the same: it is a militarized police regime that seeks to maintain the hegemony of the powerful economic and political sectors through political persecution.
This goes as far as the assassination of the opposition. We have tried to explore, in the process that is opening up with the ELN, whether it is possible to move towards a democratization of the state and the political regime on the basis of a National Accord that would make Colombia a democratic, just and inclusive country.
A negotiation process with the state is not based on making demands, but on establishing agreements, and that is what we are working on. Our aim is that whatever is agreed should be reached with the participation of society.
LT: How does the ELN evaluate Petro’s government’s performance? Are there possibilities of advancing in more profound reforms where the Colombian people and society become the protagonists?
AG: I pointed this out earlier, Petro’s government swings between alliances with traditional political parties and when this does not work, it turns to popular and social movement support. The ideal would be to identify more with popular aspirations and from there push for more fundamental reforms.
Any process of change, of transformation, whether by democratic or radical means, with mass uprisings or armed or insurrectional struggle itself, in order to be true, must have the support and identity, the aspirations and the strength of the popular movement.
LT: Finally, we would like to have some reflections from you on this new “wave” of progressive governments. How does this progressivism compare with the previous one? Is it providing an impulse for profound processes of change and can it do this?
AG: The waves can be the temporary space or fluid through which we must move, that space is constructed by the circumstances of the times, by the contradictions that generate movements and searches for the new and old problems of the existence of societies, which can include the social, political, artistic and cultural. It is like at sea, you have to move through the waves with a good boat, with the right instruments to guide you and the energy to get where you want to go.
Progressivism is the gentle way of presenting a change or a transformation, so as not to frighten, so as not to raise fears. It is given a tone of gradualness, of going little by little and without great trauma, but trying to say “this is good”. Something that is not as radical as a revolution, but something softer, acceptable and permitted.
Arguably, in the troubled times of neoliberalism, you would want to sail smoothly, thinking that you can go unnoticed and that US imperialism will buy the story that you just want to go to a space that is considered friendly.
Some think that this friendly territory can be reached, but it requires alliances that blur popular aspirations. While this may work in the early stages, in the absence of popular force, such limited changes will be countered by right-wing forces.
It is not that progress cannot be made in stages, but that it all depends on the social and political force that pushes and defends the reforms. But for a reform to bring about fundamental changes in a society, changes to the political regime are required.
For this to happen, there must be a correlation of forces that makes it possible, that it can be governed in a different way, and that there are other political protagonists. And if it is a democratic regime, it will have its litmus test in the transition to a democratic, just and inclusive Colombia.
